Kaylin—who’s there? Severn’s internal voice was much louder than it usually was. Possibly because he never used it.
The Emperor.
Silence.
He’s here alone.
Why?
I’m not sure.
“You are wondering why I have chosen to visit.”
She nodded.
“Am I so very terrifying, Lord Kaylin?”
“I’ve been repeatedly told that meeting you in person would be career-limiting, because I’d be dead.”
His smile was slender and cold, but it was there. “And perhaps that is true. You seem...wed...to the informal. In some circumstances it would be highly offensive. But you are in your own home, and I have chosen to visit, not as Emperor, but merely as another Lord of the Court.”
Kaylin wanted to laugh. If this was his idea of slumming, it was terrible. But probably to be expected from an Immortal. Mere Lord of the Court. The worst thing? He meant it.
“Why did you come? If it was to see Bellusdeo, she’s not speaking to anyone.”
“Not even you?”
“I’m part of anyone, so no.”
The Emperor rose. “This was an exceptionally poor idea. I would not be here at all if the Arkon had not insisted.”
“And why did he insist? What did he think you could do, here? You’ve pretty much insulted her. You’ve failed to acknowledge one of her few strengths. She helped save this city. She was critical at the end of the assault. She should be held in honor.”
The difference in their heights seemed immense as he stood. His eyes were a solid orange.
But she thought she understood what the Arkon meant him to hear, and emboldened by a new home, she drew breath and chose her words as carefully as she could. Well, her remaining words. “What do you know of Bellusdeo’s life before she returned to Elantra?”
He was silent.
“Do you know anything about her life?”
More silence. It was not, given the color of his eyes, a promising silence.
“Do you, in fact, know anything at all except the fact that she’s female?”
“I know that she was swept away in the tides of the breaking of the portals,” he replied. “She was young when the Arkon was, himself, much younger. She was one of nine, and they were connected. I do not understand how. I understand,” he added, “what the Arkon understands.”
Kaylin’s jaw dropped at the last bit. “You do not understand what the Arkon understands. The Arkon sees Bellusdeo. Does he worry about her? Yes. Of course he does. But he doesn’t worry about her because she’s the last female Dragon—he worries about her because he knew her. And she hasn’t changed as much as he has.”
“Mortals breed. It is what they do. You do not understand her importance—”
“I understand her importance to herself. I understand what she means to the Dragons—the very few who remain—but you’ve done well enough without her before. You can’t ask her to be something entirely different just because she’s a girl!”
“She is hardly a girl,” was his dry reply.
Kaylin was seated, but stood. “Let me take that back,” she said.
Kaylin, Severn said, be careful. He may have come in secret, but he is the Emperor.
“It’s entirely possible for you to ask her to be something she’s not. I’ve seen it often. In the place I grew up—” Kaylin, stop. “—Which you’re probably aware is the fief of Nightshade, what you’re offering Bellusdeo so she’ll pretend to be something she’s not—would have been a daydream. What you’re asking her to do for the life you’re offering would have been a daydream, too. Most of the women who couldn’t hide or make themselves incredibly unappealing ended up serving total strangers. They couldn’t escape, except by dying. Which they did.”
Kaylin.
She inhaled. Exhaled.
“People who have power often expect people who have none to make nice, just to survive. I made nice. I did worse.”
She could feel Severn give up. He didn’t stop worrying.
“What you’re asking isn’t nearly as bad. But the truth is: you’ve got power. She doesn’t.”
“I am not attempting—”
“You are. Do you think she doesn’t understand what’s required of her?”
She thought, for one long beat, he would breathe on her. The rising head of the familiar on her shoulder wasn’t much of a comfort, in that regard. But she’d started. She’d probably never have another chance to say what she thought needed to be said.
“What, then, does she require to be...happy? What does she demand? I have made clear—inasmuch as I can—that I am willing to give her anything at all that she desires.”
“She doesn’t want your fear.”
“And will you be naive enough to imagine that she wants my love? She is not mortal. She is not like you.”
Kaylin flinched. Angry Dragons were never going to be something she could face without fear. “I don’t know,” she said, forcing herself to choose her words more carefully, “what love means to Dragons. I only barely understand what hoards mean—”
“Do not imagine that you understand what a hoard means.”
“Fine. I don’t understand Dragon love and I don’t understand Dragon hoards. I don’t understand all of Bellusdeo or what she wants, either—because I haven’t known her for half my life. I’ll accept that I’m mortal and naive. But I won’t accept that the Arkon is. She will be—in future—the mother of her race. Until she has a daughter. Or several.
“She doesn’t have to be Empress. She doesn’t have to have children with you. If you care so much about the Dragon race and its continuation, you can offer to step aside.” She folded her arms.
“Do you think I have not offered her the choice?”
Given that she had, Kaylin was at a momentary loss for words. Some of her ire left her, then. “Did you?”
“Yes. Reluctantly, but yes. I understand what is at stake for all of us, even if she does not.”
“What makes you think she doesn’t?”
“What she did tonight.” His eyes deepened to an even, unfortunate red. His facial features rippled briefly. For one long, frozen moment she was afraid he was going to transform.
She held her ground. Mostly because she couldn’t, for a moment, move. “What she did tonight,” she said, through clenched teeth, “was save the city. Not more. Not less. She was Queen, once; she carried the weight of a country—and eventually what was left of a world—on her shoulders. She understands her own power, and she understands the responsibility that comes with it.”
“She is not responsible for my Empire.”
“If she’s going to live here, it can’t be just yours.”
His eyes were bleeding red at this point. But Kaylin’s would have been, too, had she been a Dragon.
“This city is my city,” she continued. “The people in it are my responsibility. I don’t have your physical power. On a purely personal level, you can do more good than I can. But that doesn’t mean the good I can do is pointless. That’s not the way the city works.
“You want Bellusdeo to be the mother of your race. I get that. But the Consort is the mother of hers, and she was in the street, fighting. The High Lord didn’t order her to cower in the High Halls—and do you know why?”
Silence.
“Because there are things that the Consort can do that he can’t.”
“You did not want the Consort in the streets, either,” he said, voice cold. Cold, in Dragons, was better than heat. He was guessing.
Kaylin accepted the guess as the truth that it was. “No. I didn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s the Consort. She’s the gateway to unimaginable power for the ancestors.” That was the truth, but not
all of it. “And because I like her. I don’t have a lot of friends. I don’t know that she wouldn’t be insulted if I called her ‘friend.’ I didn’t want her to risk her life there. I thought I could do what needed to be done.”
He looked down on her, as if she had just proved his point. “You understand.”
Kaylin exhaled heavily. “I understand why you’re protective.”
“No, Lord Kaylin, you don’t.”
“Fine. I don’t and can’t. I’m not you. But here’s the thing: I thought I could do what needed to be done so the Consort wouldn’t have to risk her life—but I was wrong. Had it been up to me, she wouldn’t have left the High Halls. And we would have failed.
“There isn’t another Barrani Lord alive who means as much to the High Lord. Or to the Barrani race. But the High Lord accepted her assessment of the risk. He accepted the risk itself. I’m not saying it was easy for him—it was probably bloody hard. But he did it anyway. If you somehow think this means the Consort means less to him than Bellusdeo means to you, you are totally, dead wrong.”
This time, his silence was less terrifying.
“I volunteer at the Foundling Hall between emergencies. I wouldn’t let the foundlings out in the streets during an attack like this—unless it would save their lives. I would be terrified for them—and I’d be right to be terrified. They’re children. The Consort is not a foundling,” she continued, almost for her own sake at this point. “Yes, I was terrified. Yes, I wanted her somewhere safe. But—that’s about me. It’s not about what she needs. It’s about what I want.
“I want all the things I love in life to be safe. Because if they’re not, I lose them. It hurts me. I was angry at Bellusdeo for trying to fight while wounded because I don’t want to lose her. Which is, again, about me. About what I need. I don’t have the weight of a race behind my needs. I get that. But—this is still about you, not her.
“And some of it—some of it honestly has to be about her. Not about the fact that she can bear babies—or eggs, I’m not so clear on how that all works—but about what she can give, what she needs, and what she wants. Look—you’re both Immortal. You have all the time in the world.”
“We do not have that time if she dies. Twice now—that I know of—she has come close.” He exhaled. There was no smoke in it. To Kaylin’s shock, he began to pace. “You are right. I do not know very much about her life. She will not speak of it, with me. The only member of the Court she is willing to speak with at all is the Arkon.”
“That’s because the Arkon sees her. He’s not interested in what she can—and must—give. He’s worried about her,” she added.
At that, the Emperor’s brows folded. “He is.”
“...He’s worried about you.”
“I advise, in future, that you think with your mouth closed.” He paced the length of the room. Kaylin was surprised he didn’t leave scorch marks in the carpets. “I was asked to come here,” he admitted, his back turned to Kaylin, “because the Arkon felt that you might have insight that the Dragon Court currently lacks.” He spun on his heel. “The rules that might once have governed courtship among our kind don’t apply to Bellusdeo. She will not speak with me. I have tried—but all our discussions end in flame and fury. Diarmat resents the leeway she is already given, and he is my right hand at Court. How much must I compromise the stability of the hierarchy I have built to make her comfortable enough that she will not leave us?” He turned again. “I do not understand my own reactions, in this. I do not understand why she sees them as insults.
“You think I don’t see her.”
“You don’t.”
“Then help me to see, Chosen.”
She could feel Severn’s sudden amusement. You asked for that.
I am so not the person to be giving romantic advice. I haven’t ever even managed to build one successful relationship. He’s insane.
Severn laughed.
I mean, the most useful advice I can give anyone about relationships is: don’t. And if you’re going to try anyway, don’t break someone’s jaw when they kiss you. That’s not useful.
Flame and fury, Severn replied. It might be more useful to Dragons than you think.
It’s not funny.
Given what I feared when you started this interview, it is. I figured Helen would save you and you’d be under house arrest for the rest of your natural life.
“I can command you; I have that right. You are a Hawk. But I will not. I ask it. Help me to see.”
“And if you don’t, or can’t? Or if you don’t like what you do see?”
The Emperor turned. “I will let her go.” His eyes were a shade of copper that Kaylin rarely saw.
“I’ll try,” she heard herself saying.
“I will leave her here. I believe that this home will not suffer the same fate as your last; I would find it almost amusing to see the Arcanists make the attempt.”
“Because you don’t think they’d survive it?”
“I am certain,” he replied, “they would not.”
* * *
Kaylin saw him out. It was weird to have to cross two rooms to reach the door. He didn’t ask to speak with Bellusdeo, and Kaylin didn’t offer. But as he turned to walk down the steps, she said, “Thank you.”
He turned back, one brow lifted.
“For not killing me,” she said, although he hadn’t asked. “And for not being what I thought—what I was certain—you were, in regards to Bellusdeo.”
He nodded. He offered no other reply.
* * *
“I think that he is not as terrible as you feared,” Helen said, causing Kaylin to jump and spin. The Avatar was standing three feet away. “He is perhaps not as flexible as one could hope—but I think there’s a chance, in future, that they may be able to speak to each other without melting the surrounding stone.
“Now, come to the kitchen. I don’t normally cook, but dinner was very rudely interrupted, and you’re hungry. We’ll want to discuss your various roommates.”
“What about them?”
“Who they are, and how many you think there will be.”
“I don’t—”
“Kaylin, if they mean you no harm and you wish to share your home with them, I will accept them. Your sense of home has been—by necessity—about the people in your life. I want to be your home. I want you to be at home here.” She slid an arm around Kaylin’s shoulders and drew her toward the kitchen.
Kaylin had never had a separate room for food. Or for eating. Or for sleeping. But she was tired, her body hurt, she was afraid of the news that waited her return to the office in the morning—and she let herself go, leaning into Helen and the sense, as they walked to the kitchen together, that this would be her home until she died.
* * * * *
But now Kaylin must find Nightshade and return him.
Don’t miss CAST IN HONOR!
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I have been in a frenzied state of “catching up” in the past year. This has caused a little more household stress than ideal—but my children were born into a writer’s house, and they more or less accept it. My husband, Thomas, is more actively helpful when I get snowed under (and I write this in December, 2013, when snow is the operative word).
My entire Harlequin team has seen me through the transition from Luna to Mira, starting with Mary-Theresa Hussey, but by no means ending there. I am, as of this writing, going to head out to watch my first ever cover model shoot, thanks to the energetic and lovely Kathleen Oudit, my art director, and I am really looking forward to it.
Terry Pearson not only read this book in its rough, chapter-by-chapter first-draft form, but provided his usual encouragement—and made sure that when I wrote “THE END”, it was actually the end.
Before I forget: C. E. Murp
hy & Laura Anne Gilman listened to me while I pulled all my hair out trying to come up with the Emperor’s name. (I had written background character sketches about the Emperor, since he’s a fairly important part of the city—but everyone pretty much calls him the Emperor. Or something far more obsequious.) In a round of suggestions, Catie came up with several syllabic suggestions, and Laura Anne pulled up one homage usage and the name eventually came out of all those things.
I cannot write with placeholder names. If I need a name, I invent one. If I get stuck on the name, I get stuck until I am unstuck. I envy people who can. I know people who do. This is not about artistic anything, but it is about process, and I’ve been reminded, at some recent cost, that every process is individual.
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ISBN-13: 9781460330326
CAST IN FLAME
Copyright © 2014 by Michelle Sagara
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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